The Varsity Baseball season has passed and many of the players are glad it is over with. After a very positive pre-season, the Barons won only two out of five series in the Sunset League and finished second to last.
Turner Clouse(‘12) put it starkly “It was tough”.
Clouse, a four-year letterman and key starter, was out the entire league season after injuring himself in the first league game against Huntington Beach.
In pre-season, the Barons went 6-1 and performed very well and outscored opponents by ten or more runs in three of the games. The Barons were predicted to place second in league and things were looking very positive going into Sunset.
When league hit, the Barons faced a different level of competition. And while almost every game was very close, on many occasions,the boys could not put together an entire game. Coach LaRuffa called numerous team meetings to discuss how the team was going to succeed in season after early losses to key opponents.
After the first five games of the season, the Barons were 2-3. The series openers really decided the fate for the Barons. The teams they beat, Edison and Newport, they beat in overall series play (2-1, 3-0); They were swept in series play by the teams they lost to-Huntington Beach, Marina, and Los Alamitos.
The pitching overall this year was good.
As frequent starting pitcher Monty Plattner(‘13) said, “I think I had an overall good season, but I would have liked to have a better league performance.”
Tanner Brown(‘12), Joseph Lorenger(‘14), Lee Perri(‘12), and Nic Yang(‘13) were the other prominent starters this season. Overall, the pitching staff was fairly thin and provided a hurdle for the Baron defense to overcome. This was most evident late in games when the Barons were looking to close out games but were forced to rely on tired arms which let other teams back in the game.
One of the defining characteristics of the Varsity Baseball team this year has been its youth. For most of the season, four out of the five infield starters have been sophomores and they have had to adapt to playing Varsity ball over the course of the season. The youth showed at times and perhaps most of all, late in games.
The Barons will part ways with six seniors this year-Connor Bitzer, Turner Clouse, Matt Gasparro, Lee Perri, Christian Rodriguez, and Tanner Brown. This leaves thirteen returners and few gaps to fill on the field for next year.
The 2011-2012 season looked promising on the outset, but an injury to a key player as well as tough competition in Sunset made this year a rebuilding year. We are looking forward to seeing the growth of the younger players next year. The boys will be working hard all summer and into next spring to elevate Baron Baseball from its previous years. The future looks bright.
